by Michael McGill Enjoy this series of five short poems by Michael McGill that illuminate our everyday occupations. ‘Occupational Poetry’ will run first on Twitter (@AnElephantNever), and we will add each poem here as it runs. The chocolatier. Great chocolate should taste like climbing warm rocks, naked. Or returning home; a woollen throw on a wooden chair. The tobacconist. I Read More
Author: Andre
Psalm with a Catholic Retreat (91)
by Shawn Anto 1 Mother asked God to save me from my wicked assimilation, unto him Almighty, I sacrifice. 2 I will say back to the Lord – “He is a confusion refuge and a mistaken fortress, my God, in whom I scatter remains for.” 3 Doubtful, he will save my hide from a broken future, in which, mother claims Read More
Congress of the Insomniacs
by Jennifer Wilson promethazine is bitter and makes dust on all things clouds on the hands and white around the fingers lines left white on the table tops and tastes of bitterness on the lips as they plume with wisps and spores like feathers plucked for a feast of public discourse and bald all the people gather in their nakedness Read More
Elephants never have debt
by Kate Dowling “I’m paying!” “No, I’ll pay.” “But it’s my turn!” “No,” I said, hoping it would be the last word. “I’m paying. And it is my turn. Don’t you remember? You paid last month.” “That’s right!” said Delilah. “Cocktails for Sinatra’s birthday. Everyone should celebrate that.” She beamed, but a sudden thought made the smile disappear. “Don’t I Read More
Anxiety
by David Hanlon What is there to say about rickety bones that isn’t rickety? Not much when my nervous system is shot and my tongue is muted by panic so thunderous I fight against the gulping of half-formed vowels, I breathe in five times faster, and if each breath taken in is a new intake of life, I’m clamouring to Read More
Covet
Why ‘bastard’? Wherefore ‘base’? … I grow, I prosper. Now, gods, stand up for bastards! – Edmund, ‘King Lear’ by William Shakespeare My handlers repeat the proscription like a mantra, whenever my eyes fill with envy: Elephants never covet. A litany of warnings fill their mouths, like a burning acacia tree speaking Pachyderm Commandments. Elephants never foment, never dissent, never… there it Read More
The Lord’s Day
by M. Stone Violet stood before Jonathan on the front porch, barring entry to the house where he was born and raised. “What can I do for you?” she asked with a lazy smile, flicking ash from her cigarette. Jonathan remained at the bottom of the steps. “I came to check on Father. He wasn’t at church this morning.” “He’s Read More
Lexapro Goddess
by Mateo Lara to cease to exist and to die are two different things entirely – Erika L. Sanchez Truth: Remind me of light white pill destroys darkest woe now the heavy fades Every bright thing the pills gave were all greedy bastards. Sometimes when I wake up there’s a fog floating above, right before my mind Read More
Target
“What do you mean, ‘The servers are all down’? Don’t we have redundancy or something, in case one of them fails?” “Yes, but Ebron knocked all of the servers offline at the same time. They are redundantly down now.” “How did he get in? I thought we temporarily turned off permissions for anyone being let go, just in case they Read More
In Pilates Class
by Ray Ball, PhD Sometimeswe do a movecalled The Elephant.Legs splayed evoking the memoryof the animal’s shape,its proboscis reaching.The muscle memoryof the hips that storeso much emotionthat never forgetstretched tau(gh)tologically.I read somewherethat elephants mourntheir dead. If onlymourning could beclear and simple,brash like the trumpetingof a pachyderm.If only what I buriedstayed under the earth,but the elephant digs it up, the fragile Read More